One year on, "keep the recovery going" has become "keep the Government going" and it seems that our two main political parties have learned little or nothing from last year's General Election.

Distracted by political crises and point-scoring, both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have missed a fundamental opportunity to address the one main issue thrown up in last year's campaign. That is the vexed question of the inequality between our rural and urban divide in terms of economic and social recovery.

While the debate surrounding the great urban-rural divide may have abated for now, the angry expression of neglect is latent. It lurks beneath a thin surface that is likely to surge up once more as soon as the first political mugshot poster hits a pole.

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